Anders' First Apprentice
by jenncgf
Summary: Anders is finally not the only Warden mage in Ferelden!  But he may have gotten more than he bargained for ... based on some BSN thread prompts.  Originally one-shot but I may add to it if I write things that make sense here.
1. The First Apprentice

_A/N: As usual, I own nothing of the Dragon Age universe. I just like to play here. Thanks for reading!_

-0-0-0-

_Finally!_ Anders was incredibly excited. He checked his robes. They were still spotless, like they had been the last fifteen times he'd checked them. He looked in the mirror one last time (_Really, this will be the last time!)_ to make sure that his hair was in place.

"Anders, you would think that you were going out to see a woman, not meeting your first Warden apprentice," Nathaniel groused as he waited in the doorway. Anders was finally satisfied with his appearance and turned to Nathaniel.

"I want to look professional," he explained. "This will be the first time I'm in charge of _anything_, let alone a new recruit, and I want to make sure that I leave a good first impression!"

Nathaniel rolled his eyes. "Anders." The _really, would you mind not being a drama queen? v_oice was in place now. "You look fine. You look … well, like a mage. You'll _be_ fine, if you ever get downstairs and _meet_ the recruits."

"All right! All right! I'm coming already." Anders smoothed his hands over his robes and left his quarters. Nathaniel accompanied him to the keep's throne room and they talked on the way.

"This is Solona Amell's brother, yes?"

Nathaniel nodded. "Yes. His name is Arthur. According to the note that the First Enchanter sent, he's excellent at primal spellcasting and passed his Harrowing faster than anybody but you and his sister."

Anders grinned. "Excellent! I'll just have to work on darkspawn strategies with him and maybe teach him a couple of basic heals and he'll be ready for anything." He lengthened his stride in his excitement, wanting to be in the throne room as soon as possible. Nathaniel sighed and walked faster to keep up.

They entered the throne room to see Elissa standing there with a young man and a young woman in front of her. She smiled at both of them. "Ah, here they are. All the Wardens are here now. Gentlemen and Erlina, may I present to you our newest recruits. This is Selena, a former templar initiate who has come to us, and Arthur, a newly-harrowed mage from the Circle." Each of the recruits bowed in turn to the Wardens assembled and Elissa made her introductions.

Anders studied the mage, his first apprentice _ever,_ as Elissa talked. The man was built like a warrior and stood almost as tall as Nathaniel. He made a mental note to ask Erna, their resident seamstress, to let out the poor man's robes across the shoulders once they got him something decent to wear. Circle Tower robes were cut more on the lean side and Arthur looked uncomfortable. Arthur had reddish-brown hair that he wore loose around his collar and he kept a moustache and goatee neatly trimmed. Even with the facial hair, the man was young, barely out of his twenties. For the first time, Anders felt … old?

Elissa turned to Anders. It was apparently his turn to be introduced. He smiled at her and held out his hand to Arthur first. "It's a pleasure to meet you!" he said cheerfully. "I am Anders, senior mage of the Grey Wardens of Ferelden. I look forward to working with you."

Arthur's eyes widened as he heard Anders introduce himself. He turned to fully face the other mage. "Anders, you say?" At Anders' nod, his expression turned neutral and his eyes looked calculating. "Were you in the circle tower? Escaped a bunch of times?"

Anders preened. "You've heard of me, I see." He grinned his most charming grin. "Seven escapes. The last one took when I was recruited into the Grey Wardens."

"That's what I thought," the other man mused and took a step forward. Anders' hand was still extended for a handshake, but what happened next defied all his expectations.

Arthur Amell, young promising mage recruit from the Circle in Ferelden, hauled back and punched Anders in the gut. It _hurt_. Anders doubled over in pain, trying desperately not to vomit the contents of his stomach all over the floor in front of all the other Wardens. Once he thought he got his gorge back under control, he looked up to see Arthur being restrained by Nathaniel and Elissa in case he tried to punch Anders again. "What was that for?" Anders croaked. He still hadn't gotten his breath fully back.

"My sister," the younger mage said as he glared at Anders. "You told her she was special, you dumbass, and then disappeared on her. It's a good thing she didn't believe you after seeing you with three other mages the week before." He looked at Elissa. "It's all right, Commander. I won't hit him any more." Elissa and Nathaniel looked at each other, then reluctantly let him go.

Anders ignored Oghren's snickering and quietly cast a spell to heal any internal damage the punch might have caused, then stood up. "Well, I probably deserved that." He ruefully shook his head at Arthur. "You, ser, have the honor of being the first person to ever punch me because of his sister. Congratulations!" He extended his hand out again and grinned at the younger man.

Arthur's eyes grew wide again, then crinkled as he laughed. He clasped Anders' hand heartily and shook it. "Good show, ser Anders, good show." He leaned forward and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Just so you know, I broke your old record." He leaned back and gave Anders a challenging grin.

Anders was confused. "I thought that Irving had said I still had the fastest Harrowing ever, and your sister had the second fastest."

"Oh, that's true. I meant the _other_ record."

Anders gasped. "You mean …?"

Arthur nodded and his smile grew infinitesimally wider. Anders thought the young man looked rather wolfish. "Yes. I now hold the first place record for the most trysts in the First Enchanter's office."

"Maker's breath! What is _with_ you mages? Are they _all_ like that? I can't believe you've never been punched before for your exploits! No wonder they lock you all in a tower!" Nathaniel threw his hands wide in exasperation and stalked off, muttering about mages who couldn't keep their sex lives to themselves.

Anders laughed loudly and threw his arm over the younger man's shoulder. "Welcome to the Grey Wardens! You'll get along here just fine!" He led the younger man off and they started comparing their experiences in the Circle Tower.

Anders had his first apprentice ever, and the knew it was going to work out _fantastically._


	2. Conspiracy

_A/N: This chapter actually filled a pair of prompts during the same week. On the Anders thread on BSN, the prompt was to start the story with the sentence "He certainly hadn't expected that to happen." On the Nathaniel thread on BSN, the prompt was "Conspiracy." I hope you enjoy!_

-0-0-0-

He certainly hadn't expected _that _to happen.

More to the point, he had expected _something_ to happen when he cast that spell. Or, you know, _anything. _He looked askance at his hands. _Why didn't the spell work?_ He had never, ever had a problem like that before. He felt … well, he felt impotent. Not that he knew how _that_ felt or anything. Far from it! No, really. He shook his hands, then his head, and tried to cast again at the practice dummy…

Nothing.

_This is embarrassing. It's really, really embarrassing. _He looked over to where Nathaniel, Oghren and Ragnar were standing. Oghren was taking a swig from his flagon. Nothing unusual there. Nathaniel was tapping his foot impatiently, his arms crossed, and he was scowling. Also fairly normal. Ragnar just watched, expressionless. That dwarf really _was_ made of stone. He made Nathaniel look positively ebullient with the amount of emotion he allowed to cross his face. _They're all acting normally. Still, I wonder, could Nathaniel be getting even for … nah. He has no way to control my spellcasting. Besides, Elissa would be here if it was a payback. She's the one who got the worst of it. _Even after reassuring himself, he took a moment to really study Nathaniel's face. There was not a trace of mischief or plotting present.

Nathaniel raised an eyebrow at Anders' perusal. "What?" he demanded. "Shouldn't you be showing us how _incredible_ your spellcasting is by now? I thought that the training dummy was going to burst into 'thousands of itty bitty pieces that we'd be searching for weeks for'."

Anders turned back to face the training dummy. _This spell is easy. You can do this._ A bead of sweat trickled from his scalp down the back of his neck and made an uncomfortable path down his back. He resisted the urge to squirm as he reviewed the steps of the spell, reminded himself of the motions in his mind, and made sure that he hadn't forgotten some tiny detail that rendered the casting useless. He frowned; it should have cast perfectly. After all, this was one of the earliest spells he'd ever learned and he had perfected it years before he went through his harrowing. If he hadn't been so confident in his ability to cast this one spell and shatter the training dummy, he would never have made the stupid bet…

_Several of the Wardens were already seated around the table when Anders arrived in the dining hall. He gathered an enormous plate of food and sat down. "Hey," he said before he stuffed a roll in his mouth, "Where are the others?" He was usually last down to breakfast, so it was surprising that he was able to choose his seat._

"_Elissa decided to train Arthur in some elven thing that she'd learned during the blight," Nathaniel said offhandedly. Anders raised an eyebrow at this. Elissa was an excellent leader and trained others well, but Arthur was a mage. Elissa was an archer. Anders didn't understand how that could possibly work._

"_Uh...she's going to train Arthur some elvish spells?" He wasn't surprised that his voice showed the incredulity he felt._

"_Not spells, Sparklefingers!" Oghren laughed at Anders. "She learned this thing about an ancient elven warrior sect – they were mages who used their magical powers to fight with real weapons instead of those sticks you insist on carrying around. She thought that since Arthur's built like a warrior and he ends up running into the fray all the time anyway, that he might be able to do this 'arcane warrior' or whatever it's called thing." He took a long swig from his mug. Ale was apparently just as good with breakfast as it was with lunch, dinner, snacks and dessert._

"_I will have you know, dwarf, that a mage's staff is every bit as real a weapon as a sword." Anders narrowed his eyes at his friend. It had been a while since Oghren had teased him about his prowess with weapons. "A mage's staff is just as effective as any other ranged weaponry out there." _

_At this, Nathaniel raised an eyebrow. "In the right hands, the bow is the best ranged weapon available." He snorted dismissively. "You can't hope to compete with a bow using just that thing."_

"_Hah! Even I could outdo the damage one of your measly arrows does, and I'm a healer! One spell can shatter multiple enemies with a single chant. You'd need several arrows to do that."_

_Nathaniel's eyes gleamed. "Care to wager on that?"_

_Anders grinned. This was too easy. "What does the winner get?" He waggled his eyebrows as he leered at his dark-haired friend. "Uninterrupted time with the boss?"_

"_The boss happens to be my wife, you dolt." Nathaniel's eyes narrowed. "No." Anders hadn't thought it would actually happen, but it was worth a try. Elissa was a very attractive woman, after all. Nathaniel continued. "Whoever causes the most damage to the training dummies gets to make the loser his personal slave for a day."_

"_I'll enjoy enslaving you, Ser Broody," Anders said as he stood up. "It's a deal. Let's do this."_

_All of the Wardens who had assembled for breakfast made their way to the training yard. Nathaniel had gone first – he let one well-placed arrow fly and decapitated the training dummy in front of him. It was impressive, but nothing Anders couldn't easily top. Or at least that's what he had thought as he taunted his friend and started to cast…_

"Will you cast already?" Nathaniel's voice was annoyed now. Anders muttered something derogatory under his breath and he summoned up the will, drew on his vast reserves of power, and made the motions for the spell. This was going to be _fantastic_ – everything really clicked into place as he said the words and made the motions before throwing his power out at the training dummy …

The dummy sat there, untouched.

_What is wrong with me today? Andraste's knickerweasels! That should have blown the dummy and its three neighbors apart!_

"Senior mage, huh?" Ragnar's voice, quiet as usual, but with a trace of derision, cut through Anders' shock. Ragnar walked over and stood next to Anders. "I can cast better than _that."_

Anders snapped out of his daze at those words. "Did you hit your head or something? You're a _dwarf_!"

"Watch me." Ragnar was all quiet confidence as he chanted and moved his hands. He was too quiet for Anders to hear the words, but he must have said the words of power correctly, for one of the other training dummies in front of him _caught on fire._

Anders felt dizzy. He looked at his hands, then felt his own forehead. "This has _got_ to be a bad dream," he mumbled to himself. "I think I need to go back to bed, and when I wake up, everything will be normal again." He muttered to himself and staggered back to the keep where he planned to spend the better part of the day in bed, recuperating from whatever it was that was ailing him.

-0-0-0-

Nathaniel watched Anders disappear inside the keep, still mumbling to himself, then turned to the others. "You can come out now," he called out. Arthur and Elissa emerged from inside the cart that was conveniently positioned near the training yard.

"That worked! That … ahahahahah! … That actually … hehehe … worked!" Oghren was doubled over in laughter. Ragnar looked at Nathaniel with an actual _smile_ on his face, and Elissa and Arthur were laughing as well.

"Having Ragnar 'cast' was a great touch, Arthur. I'm glad you thought of it." Nathaniel clasped the young mage's arm in a gesture of brotherhood. "The look on his face ..." Nathaniel allowed himself a quiet laugh.

"It seemed like the perfect idea, after you suggested we give the training dummy spell immunity," Arthur laughed. "You know, I _like_ being a Grey Warden. This is too much fun." Arthur was grinning and his eyes were twinkling in pure mischief. "As long as I don't have to be the one who tells him what we did ..."

"We'll make it up to him." Elissa grinned up to Nathaniel as she spoke. "But not today. Today is the first day I haven't itched in a week! Serves him right for putting those herbs in our bed." She moved closer to Nathaniel and lowered her voice so that only he could hear. "By the way, I am going to be on top for a while. Just in case."

Nathaniel laughed as he put his arm over Elissa's shoulder. "Fair enough." He turned to the others. "So let me know what you want Anders to do for each of you – don't be _too_ hard on him! - and we'll put those tasks on his list." He started walking toward the keep, his arm still over his wife's shoulder, and they laughed as they planned what they would have Anders do as their personal slave for a day.

He already had ideas, however. After all, he certainly _had_ expected this to happen.


End file.
